Four Times Charlotte Stopped Amelia From Using
by winter machine
Summary: ...and one time she didn't.  Written during the hiatus, and could be read to take place within the first few episodes of the new season.  Dark and Amy.


_I'm on a posting frenzy - which I hope will lead to more writing. I can't get enough of Amelia's dark twistiness - or her relationship with Charlotte. Next week's preview encouraged me to post this in case anyone else feels the same way. Also I think this was 200-word exercise at one point (for each number) and then it wasn't. _

**Four Times Charlotte Stopped Amelia From Using  
><strong>_**And One Time She Didn't **_

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><p>1. There is something almost comforting to the notion that she hasn't done this before. That there is anything left that she hasn't tried. She lost her virginity at thirteen, her driver's license at seventeen and now, her right to practice medicine. She'd been alive scarcely half a decade before she huddled in her brother's smothering embrace to watch her father die. Tonight it's smaller arms that surround her, smaller even than her own, smooth golden skin capped with fine baby hairs. Like an apricot when she flushes pink with desire. <em>I'm afraid,<em> Amelia whispered on the phone. _Don't move, I'm coming to get you. _Now Amelia touches her, lets her fingers skim lightly, almost casually, over tender flesh. She roams this new territory with no particular goal in mind; Charlotte permits this, head tilted back, breath catching slightly, dab of moisture at the corner of faintly bitten lips. Amelia gets bolder, lets her teeth tug at the exposed throat, her palms fill themselves with softness. She stops herself. Not because she wants to, but because she needs to know that she can. That's comforting too.

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><p>2. She learns. It's what she does. She's the innocent baby sister who needed no lessons to roll her older siblings' joints, the youngest girl in the car who hated seatbelts for their promise of immortality. She was Amy: addict, failure. Dead, in some ways. Now she's Amelia: surgeon. Brilliant. Top of her class. She learns fast and she sheds what's leftover. What's wasted. She's a lizard shucking a dry skin and crawling over it in search of water. Charlotte is her lab table, her textbook, her library. She sinks into soft skin, explores the uncharted bits she never would have thought to lave: the fragile skin at the back of the knee. The delicate turn of an ankle. The inside of her wrist. Amelia spends a long time there, licking parallel lines into the blue-veined map. Vertical. Has to be vertical, so they know you mean it. Anything else is a cry for attention. Anything else is just for show. She lets herself be touched too, but it's less important. She already knows how to loosen the tight muscles at her thighs, press her head into the pillows until her hair is a tangled cloud. It's not new. It's not learning. She does it anyway, pretends there's something different around slim delicate fingers and lipsticked mouth. <em>Your turn<em>, she says when Charlotte finishes. _Your turn again._

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><p>3. He's a joke, at first. He wouldn't mind, because he would love it. Because he'd want to watch. But sometimes a shadow crosses Charlotte's face and she kisses it away, more tender than she thought she could be. Embarrassingly so. She doesn't want to admit how much she's come to need this. <em>Where were you tonight? <em>Addison asks, all wide blue eyes that are used to lies. _With Charlotte? At a meeting? _Amelia just says _yes_. She keeps the secret within her like a pearl, wraps it in layers of fear. Fear that she'll drink. _Charlotte, I'm here again, Charlotte. _Fear that she'll fall:_Charlotte, come get me. _Fear that she won't. _Charlotte, I need you. _Charlotte's brow furrows, pretty little nose wrinkling. She doesn't want to hurt him, she says. _After all he's done for me. _Amelia curls on her side, counts the bones in the spine under her hands. _I can do things for you,_ she says. Charlotte spins like a top until she's facing her, cheeks pinker than desire. _Don't say that. That's not what we're doing. _Amelia lets go. Her hands feel scorched. Of course that's not what they're doing. _What are we doing, then? _she asks, hating the tentative note in her voice. The baby sister, fragile and pleading. _Take me with you. I want to come too. Don't leave me here! _She asks again. Charlotte slides halfway down the bed, a muscle in her calf twitching. Amelia reaches for it but Charlotte's standing before she can make contact. _I think you should go,_ she says. Her voice is cold; Amelia wears it like a chain around her neck as she walks home.

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><p>4. Amelia stands there until Charlotte opens the door, her fist numb from pounding. Charlotte wraps a hand around her wrist, drags her inside and treats her scraped knuckles. <em>Why? <em>she asks, but Amelia doesn't answer. _Stop,_ she says, but Amelia can't, she can't do anything except tangle her fingers in silky hair and yank until she can kiss that one sensitive spot somewhere between earlobe and neck. A fistful of cotton splays with burst seams, bare muscles jump under her hands. This is right, it has to be right because it feels right. Because it feels something. Because Charlotte's skin is hot and dry, a sandy beach. Inside she's warm and slippery and Amelia braces herself so she won't be lost. She can find her way now, the ridges, the lifts and downs. She knows what she's doing. There's no comfort in knowing but there's something else. Danger, the tang of fear, Charlotte's mouth open and shouting something she can't hear. It doesn't matter, it only matters how the skin pulses under her fingers and everything whirls past her until her vision darkens and it's over. It's over too soon. Charlotte comes apart in her arms as she expects her to, amidst bandaids and bactine spray and a damp washcloth still spotted with blood. You wanted this too, Amelia tells her, and Charlotte just says _no. _

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><p>5. She dials the number four times. Four is a nice even number. Anyone could miss one call. A shower or a long line for coffee could account for two. Three's inexcusable but Charlotte's earned an extra, one more chance from a woman who stopped getting chances of her own too many years ago to count. Four, then. Four times. The first time she dials, it rings shrilly in her ear. No one answers. She spins half a turn on the barstool. Dials again. No answer. She orders a gin and tonic. Crisp. Stark. She won't drink it, so it doesn't matter. The third time she dials, no one answers. She lifts the gin and tonic to her lips, smells it, runs a finger on the rim of the glass, then sends it back untouched. She dials the fourth time, and it goes straight to voicemail. Not a ring. Not a chance. Charlotte's shut her phone off. There's no going back now. Amelia likes irony so she orders a shot of Southern Comfort. Wait - <em>is <em>that irony? Fuck it, she decides, she can call it what she wants. The shot burns going down. She slams the glass back on the table, pounds three more. Four's a good number, after all. A heavyset guy in a leather jacket helps her up when she falls. He props her back up on the barstool, stuffs thick unwelcome fingers under her skirt, laughs when she shoves at him. She nearly falls again before he finally stops, just because he wants to, not because she stopped him. He licks meaty fingertips and she feels faintly ill. Fuck irony. Fuck everything. She lifts the empty glass of Southern Comfort and smashes it into his head. She's still screaming when the police arrive.


End file.
